Fontana

Announcing £4.5b of investment in products & services.

Worcester

According to Raffles blog it seemed to be a mea culpa and back pedalling of a lot of his major decisions.

Flame3601

Is he having a laugh ? " Premium airline for all" , is this the same airline that doesn't serve food/snacks nor anything liquid based to it's customer on intra-Europe flights ... no different to a LCC.

HIDDY

He's only been in the job since the Spring of last year. The restructuring of BA - AKA race to the bottom on here - started well before he arrived.

Raffles

The back-peddling on the 2nd meal in WT did come with mea culpa but the implication was that he didn't make the original decision.

Now, we know Alex DID sign off on the new meals in Club Europe which are also now to be ditched. I have heard stories that he was not told that the bands were being changed so that some routes got a poorer offering than before.

The £4.5bn is a load of nonsense, unless you call replacement capex 'investment'.

rockflyertalk

Here's the link to the full video of Cruz, his speech and Q&A from yesterday's event...

Tobias-UK

Are the new meals being ditched altogether or are we just going to see changes to the old band 3 flights? I like the new catering on the short band service, I think it just about right for such short sectors.

florens

I disagree. The panino is cheap, the duck/chicken salad portions are tiny and there is not enough variation for frequent flyers.

mikeyfly

Panini is unappalling, even when offered as a “chicken Caesar ciabatta”

Revolting and unacceptable for a dinner time two hour flight

Stez

Youtube auto-generated subtitles seems to think he is speaking Portuguese.

Raffles

I think 'complete overhaul' was the phrase - video should confirm.

smokie36

I was puzzled by this response as elsewhere you stated you're not a sandwich fan and much of the menu if you can call it that is bread based.

However on reflection if you have the right status I guess you are up front and get the decent choice and yes for the two or three of those meals loaded it looks pretty decent.

rossmacd

I actually think he comes across quite well - thankfully sans hi-viz.

His musings give me some confidence that he is genuinely looking to improve the lonhaul J product, although the pace of which does not come across as overly ambitious. I do hope he can land a competitive product - it is long overdue - in a timely fashion.

Good to hear about CE meal improvements, which are also badly needed on the short bands in particular. I'm sure the Y/W flyers will be pleased with announcements of restoring catering in these cabins also.

corporate-wage-slave

You would never be accused of belonging to the same fan boy group as perhaps some of us, so it's interesting that this is your perspective.

The stand out elements for me were (a) recognising the role of the BA staff, not sure he would have said that when he was running Vueling (b) demonstrating flexibility and pragmatism - implying that mistakes need correction. Overall it was quite thoughtful I felt.

There was one thing he said which I too had noticed: since the arrival of the self tagging machines, normally when you walk through any door into T5, whether by HEX, tube or taxi, there is now a BA staff member right by the door, to point the worried once-a-year traveller towards the right direction. I'm sure this was part of a self-rebuttal about destructive cost cutting - cutting costs when done correctly can also improve the service where it matters.

rossmacd

I sure wouldn't, but I do have some hope that something can be done to elevate the J product to something resembling competitive. I would be genuinely happy if he manages it.